Misgiving
by Harbinger Loki
Summary: Landis-centered, sort of influenced by SCB: Landis is a mystery. Going Home to visit the dying embers of a family that he once had. Will some answers to his past come to be revealed? Everything is Misgiven.
1. Conversation 0: Girl in Question

Misgivings  
  
A/N: This is a Landis centered fic. I hope it to be only of five chapters. It would do me a great pleasure if you reviewed your thoughts on this.  
  
~~*~~  
  
It is the darkness calling my sight to the new-day light. The darkness I yearn for as I remember what I had last seen.  
  
Her eyes were so angry, Ayame's eyes were. Why was she willing to defend me from the attack? She is a shinobi and she loves her Sasari. Amusing, as that is to see that twerp with one of the few people I respect. The way the monsters acted. I could not get through them and if it were not for the fact that Ayame had casted a magic shield on me in time, I know I would've received the celestial bliss I want.  
  
It was an admission, a grant that I wanted desperately. After living as the monstrosity as I am, I wondered why I had ever shed the name of Sid. I also had been left to wonder so many things.  
  
There are the simple questions that I can answer but I don't want to say anything about it right now. The light beckons me to open up my crimson eyes. I don't want to. IT is something I tend to dread as I go to sleep in that dark cave that is my home for now. The underground caverns of Budahec castle is something to want after the caverns I've lived in but it is home for me.  
  
The reason I want the darkness...I want to see my mother. I've never really ever met her but I heard the woman who created the race of the winghordes is really my mother. That damned light won't stop bugging me!!!  
  
Feeling my heavy eyelids, the ones that want to refuse the dawning rays, I can't help but notice that my arms hurt, they itch horribly from where something emits itself into my pale complexion. My hearing seems horrid. I can't hear anything that is past five fucking feet and what I hear is the click-clack of Mio's shoes.  
  
That damned woman had healed me!! She personally decided to violate my right to say anything about my condition. I hate that. I hate her!! Wait, light is coming through both eyes, well not necessarily the light but the top of the generally colored white ceiling in where the chandeliers shone with precise light, dampened somewhat by the rising sun.  
  
It was a few minutes until I could actually move my eyes away from all those unimportant details in the top wall, my crimson eyes, the ones that my mother had given me from her blood as it were said, clicked groggily upon the face of Mio. Her short cut brunette hair swinging in the open-windowed breeze. A simple elegant smile plastered upon her disgusting face.  
  
I hate Tuta and I hate Mio. They heal me when I want death, when I want my mother. I want to reach up and grab her perfect little motherly face, and twist it, put my claws to work and feel the rush of wind as I would drink her blood but that gore-fest would be nothing but a fantasy. I had been told over and over after injuring one of the medical staff for even coming near me, that I was not to kill any of them.  
  
"How are you feeling today, Landis?" Her chirpy voice awakens me to the brilliant hot rage I have for all medicinal people. I want them dead and I want all of them killed by me and me alone. She smiles, awaiting my answer as she changes the bags of liquid from their post for me.  
  
"Worse." I snap at her viciously. What did she expect me to say, 'Oh, I am just so fine!! I can even try hopscotch today!! I mean after all my body is pretty damaged up pretty badly, and the morphine is just wonderful. Won't you give me some more?' I feel myself laughing with my pointy canines, the teeth I often plunged into the hearts of my victims.  
  
"Oh, that must be because the I.V. is becoming a little bothersome. My other patients tell me that's a little of the problem but this is new technology for the hospital right now." I settle for a low-keyed glare since I can barely see her fully. Why does she want to heal someone who is already destined for death? Why is she who she is?  
  
These were the questions that were too difficult to answer. Her brown eyes seem to glitter magnificently as I try my damnedest to not reach up and snap her neck. I hate having to wake up in this damned hospital but no, Sasarai and Viki won't stop healing me after the damned battles. Watching Mio, her tender pale hands reached over to take a look at my wounds, sending icy trails amongst my paler skin.  
  
"Well, do you want to know what is wrong with you?" She asked politely, the sweetness disguising the mal-content she hid well for me. I smirked, my lips touching the bar surface of her aggravation. My crimson eyes looking at the wall in silent contemplation. She'd tell me either fucking way. It was part of her job after all, even to ones like me.  
  
Sighing in defeat, a loving defeat for me at least, she started on the diagnosis that I was given. "Well, you had three fractures on one leg, five ribs broken, a sprained ankle, poisoning, and lastly, a fractured skull." She smiled that same sickening smile, her brown eyes still glittering with the hidden defeat that I had won from her. I hadn't even thought I had been hurt as bad as some people.  
  
"Well, looks like I'll be out of here soon, Nursie." I growled at her. Her disappointment could be easily seen from her deep eyes. There was something else she was not telling me. My toothy fanged grin seemed to disappear underneath my thick lips. I knew she wanted me out of here. It meant more time for me not to try to attack her.  
  
"That is Ms. Mio to you, Mister Landis. And you won't. The poison that is in your system will take its course for about three days. You've already slept for two, that and the Flame Champion has issued a command that you are to stay here until you are asked for a mission, otherwise, you stay within our boundaries." Those empathetic lips shaping into a frown that I could feel it increasing upon my own. Plucking up a bottle and a needle, she took some of whatever they had given me earlier, flicking the bottle slightly, then turning with the silver point towards my trapped arms.  
  
Trying to move away from that damned thing, I knew instantly that they had bound my hands and legs to the bed. Great, just fucking great for me. My thoughts were in a jumble as I felt the stinging pain of the medical tool easing morphine into my blood, mixing it in darkly, causing the light at the top of the room to blur with that damned nurse's face.  
  
I think before the darkness overtook me, I told her to fuck off, but I am never going to be sure...  
  
~~*~~  
  
"Dr. Tuta, do y-....know.....Psycholo-..." I can barely hear the medicine that she had given me for the tenth time this week doing its course. My bones were knitting well with the constant usage of earth and water runes by Tuta, Mio, and Estelle. Whenever Estelle comes near, I feel the exact sense of what one would say, 'crap,' coming nearer to me to make me dread her coming even within two or five feet.  
  
I dare to wonder how that little broom-brat can stand it. The whispers utter from near my bed, the morphine easing off from my veins, becoming nothing. I could feel that my bones were better and that I would have the normal weakness whenever a broken bone was healed, the soreness or dizziness continuing for a short while usually.  
  
Turning, my shaggy dark blonde hair, I open those same crimson eyes, the ones I hate to see the light with. Tuta, in his normal outfit of orange and white, sitting at his desk, with Mio and Geddoe in front of him. He was holding out some sort of folder, a little fuzzy but you really couldn't miss it I surmise.  
  
Geddoe seemed to understand perfectly between the trio, Tuta accepting it somewhat, waiting for the decision from that bitch, Mio. Whenever I will, I will make sure my massacre includes them first. Growling underneath my voice, Mio was shaking her head in disagreement raising a ruckus as I felt a wind rune spell activate and make me sleep. I should have known that Queen was in here along with Jacques. The three of them out of the firebringer were always together, especially when it came to decisions about the members.  
  
Damn that bitch. Damn both of them.  
  
~~*~~  
  
  
  
Another sunny day, another day to be alone. A small pre-teen girl ran about the classroom near the castle. The other children were around the small built classroom like Melville, and Cecile, who was still in their version of high school.  
  
The teacher was none other than Chris Lightfellow, an armed woman conned into being a teacher for a short while. The knight stared at all the children around her, trying to teach on the importance of logistics and not being conned into teaching.  
  
The small pre-teen girl looked up towards one of the castle windows where Master Thomas sat listening patiently to his councilors. Flame Champion Geddoe and true lightening rune holder, Hugo, were out with two teams for awhile leaving Chris and Thomas to deal with everything, which was hell in itself.  
  
"Gab-Rial!!" the white haired knight called out to the girl, sitting quietly, a distance away from all the others. It was not for the fact that Gabriel, as she preferred being called instead of her actual name, considered watching people a content activity for a girl with such life and optimistic views. The girl stood up, away from the window to the rest of the disordered class with the disheveled knight.  
  
"Yes, Lady Chris?" Gabriel's voice was soft and silky as a feather from the spirits' wings. Standing behind the defeated knight was Nurse Mio and Dr. Tuta, who had come to see what the entire ruckus was about. His face was amused at all the children as Nurse Mio asked if Chris needed some help.  
  
"Gabriel, Mel, Belle, and Sharon are the only ones who have been good enough to go about the castle right now as they wish. Though I think everyone should leave but they can't because of protocol." Chris droned on, Nurse Mio taking the four girls from the classroom with the dysfunctional Chris and even worse the disobedient kids.  
  
Gabriel didn't mind taking a walk away from the noisy classroom. She was a person who preferred more contemplative silence except if it was just her and another, then she liked conversation. Smiling, they stopped by Mio's station at the hospital wing, the aforementioned nurse going towards a few patients when one patient caught Gabriel's fluorescent light green eyes.  
  
"Hello," She told the body as she moved closer. He held himself with an aloof expression, eyeing her with an unnerving dark garnet ocular gaze. She wasn't scared as she stood right beside his bedside; his eyes seemed to call out for someone in their deep murky depths as he stared at her contemplating his choice of action. "I'm Gabrielle."  
  
He reached up to her. His eyes unfocused as she reminded him of someone he once knew that had made Sid into Landis instead. Her small fingers fell into his reaching claw-like fingers. He knew instantly as they touched that something was up about her, much like it was with Jimba but much more.  
  
"Who are you?" Her soft voice asked out of the blue. Her hands tracing the patterns on his palm, causing tremors of healing energy through him. She didn't have a rune on either of her hands so how was she healing him? He wondered it as he felt his voice arrive to answer idly.  
  
"Sid but everyone now calls me Landis." He told her, wondering deeply why he told her his real name. The girl seemed to allow a wisp of a smile over take her face to only be taken away from the call of an alerted certain Nurse.  
  
"Gabrielle!! Watch out for Landis!!" Nurse Mio reached out towards the girl, her hands brushing her shoulder to pull her away from the winghorde. A look of pain came upon Landis as he felt her hand fall away from his.  
  
"Stop." Landis told Mio, whom in turn looked surprised at him. He didn't like anyone even trying to visit him, except for maybe Mamie. He liked her visiting when she cooked him his favorite food and told him about other recipes. (Though it was kept a huge secret that he preferred her and all those dogs great company to have when she cooked) Gabrielle tried coming out of Mio's grip to no avail. "I won't hurt her, you crazy bi-" He paused his mouth in mid-sentence. Should he curse? No, that would not do anything to help the situation at all. "You crazy nurse!!" he landed on instead.  
  
"Why in the?!" Mio started; stunned that he did not curse as he normally would for the whole castle to hear normally. Her hand raised up from the girl's shoulder, Gabrielle moving forth once the retainer let her go to the winghorde.  
  
"I have to go." She muttered to him, then looked over to Mio, a look of pleading grace crossing her face. "Nurse Mio, may I come back here and talk to Landis tomorrow?" Landis focused on her. His crimson eyes searching heavily upon her pale framed face. Mio's surprise was written across her face plainly.  
  
"Only if Landis will allow you." She managed to answer through her stupor. Landis nodded to the girl and Mio. The three other girls were opening their eyes in fright as they had heard many things about the dark and morbid winghorder.  
  
"I'll see you tomorrow then, Landis." The girl smiled, being taken by the hand away from him. Landis's face widened in concern. Why? Why did she touch him?! Why had she even dared to talk to him much less touch him and want to see him more? His mind was blurring together in bewildered thought. Only a few answers for tomorrow would answer them. 


	2. Coversation 1: The Weathering Winghorde

Misgivings

A/N: This is a Landis centered fic. I hope it to be only of five chapters. It would do me a great pleasure if you reviewed your thoughts on this. 

~~*~~

Coversation: Weathering of the Winghorde

The dusty tomes from the nearby office of Dr. Tuta sent chills down Landis's spine as he had awoken. His bones were almost healed and the poison was long out of his system. His crimson cue blinked several times as he noticed that it was noon. The light created a murky atmosphere of nurses and Dr. Tuta visiting their patients, leaving him last as usual. 

Sitting up in his bed, he felt somewhat weirder than usual, the vertigo going straight to his head, making his head swim. Taking one hand, he clutched his shady brunette-haired head and shook it slightly to get the annoying sickening feeling from his body. He remembered the girl from yesterday and wondered if she really meant to visit him. 

His eyes were set upon the closed window near the end of his bed. The dreary winter morning sky swirled around the castle, creating a lulling blanket of twilight. He could sense that outside the window that the snow would come and freeze the underground caverns. That meant that he would have to come up from the caverns and hang around everyone on the topsoil and hopefully be able to get his own room or he'd have to share hopefully with either Gabrielle and the other kids or up in the rafters in the tavern if Anne would let him, or with Hortez VII. 

He wondered if his options were worth it at all, then he felt her presence once more. Gabrielle was walking through the hospital wing wearing a different yukata from yesterday that was mostly a dark velvety violet, designs of dragons criss-crossing here and there. Her lavender hair was raised up into a half ponytail and half-down, spreading curls here and there. 

"Good afternoon, Landis!!" Her cheery voice called out to him as she walked towards him, holding a blanket wrapped bento just for them. "I brought you some sushi, rice, potsticker, and shogun steak." She told him as she sat down beside his bed in a chair that resembled a slave's stool somewhat with its uniquely simplistic design. "I had Ms. Mamie cook it for us. She's really nice don't you think?" 

"Yes, Mamie is nice." He told her, indifferent to Mamie yet for the fact that he did prefer her company too most, at least he got to eat whenever she came. Taking his eye to the food that she had lain out on his lap, he broke the chopsticks and began to eat, listening to Gabrielle as she ate. 

Their silence wasn't an uncomfortable one. It was like a one between good friends who had not seen each other for a long time, thinking of what to tell one another in the absence of talk. Her eyes peeked up as she ate another roll of soy sauced sushi. She wanted him to talk what was on his mind. Ignoring the looks of the other patients, he returned her glance at his other eye. 

"Why do you hide one of your eyes?" She asked, her inquisitive voice melodic as the strings of violin from a widely known orchestra. His eye flashed dangerously, letting her know that was a slightly touchy subject. She blinked ignoring it and staring at him for his answer. He growled underneath his breath, his canines showing as he frowned. 

"I lost it." He seemed reluctant to even talk about how he lost it, even if it piqued her interest completely. Tilting her head as she frowned a little, her curious green eyes seemed to stare through his soul as she reached out with her hand and touched his forearm. Immediately the effects of her spell worked endlessly on him, shifting through his system, comforting and healing him. Though the effects calmed and lasted, her hand retracted back to her bento box. 

"It's a dull day isn't it?" Her face glanced towards the dreary cold grey sky outside of the window at the end of his bed. Landis couldn't help but stare at her then towards the sky that she was looking at. He remembered a cold sky like this one. Frowning at his sentiment coming through again, he took his crimson eye away from the sight towards the bento on his lap once more eating it. 

"It's not a dull day for you." He told her gruffly. Gabrielle seemed to have the ghost of a smile upon her lips when she looked back to him. Her lavender curls swept up as she moved to the window to look out of it. The winghorder only could blink at her as she placed a tentative hand upon the cold reflection of herself. 

"It's going to snow soon, isn't it?" That crimson eye jumped up in reply to her question. A piece of sushi being chewed up slowly in his mouth as he watched her with interest. She acted like she was young but she seemed to have this wiser air around her almost everytime he saw her. In fact she reminded him so much of Zoe-i….that..No, he wouldn't allow himself to think of that. 

"Yes. You're holiday is coming in at least a few weeks." He told her absent-mindedly. His own holiday that he loved, Halloween, past about two months before and as a winghorde he didn't allow himself to celebrate any other holiday except perhaps his birthday and the anniversaries that he held dear. 

"Are you getting out soon?" She turned back to him, away from the steamed white-framed window to the outside world. The winghorder shrugged. He was hoping to get out soon and go back to the Two Rivers to pay a visit, but otherwise he was not that sure.

"I suppose I'll be out of here soon. Hopefully today since I am done healing." His rough face frowned with his thick lips and his eye glaring at the hospital wing that he was in. He hated the situation he was in; even more he hated hospitals and Mio. Gabrielle smiled towards him, unknowingly dismissing his glare to a particular bad stomachache or something. 

"Ms. Mio and Dr. Tuta have been taking care of you so well. Wouldn't you miss staying here where you get fed and visited?" She had asked a question of curiosity; mere curiosity that didn't mean that Landis had to snap as he did. His one eye grew in proportions, eyebrow twitching underneath his hair as his muscles tensed. 

"I HATE them! I HATE this whole damned hospital!! I WANT them to die!! I WANT them all to die!! I HATE them!!!! I hate them!!!!! I hate them…." He growled, lunging towards the unmoving Gabrielle. A frown wrought upon her countenance as Mio and Tuta had looked up from their work to see Landis shoot forward towards Gabrielle with his claw-like hands. 

"It's okay to hate those that help you, Sid." Her voice sounded much older and her eyes glistened with the green dew of generations before her. Once he was within arm reach, he bounced off of an invisible wall around her. His eyes were wide open in disbelief as he was shot back into his bed by the guarding wall around her.

"What the HELL?!?!?!?" He screamed as she walked towards him unflinchingly, eyes resting upon his confused and hurt brow. A thousand needles seemed to break through his skin as if they were taking his cells apart one by one. The pain was unbelievable to his mind's eye. His heart leaped in his throat, as he knew this was death. This was what he wished for so much!! 

Grinning like mad, He began laughing crazily, fangs shimmering in the dusky brazier light that was in the hospital wing. Gabrielle could. only grin at him as she picked up the bento from floor. Mio and Tuta were hurrying to get syringes and tranquilizers for her protection, which she knew that she didn't need, Sid would not hurt her at all.

"Now, come to your senses, Sid." She told him, gently placing a hand on his pale skin. Her ghostly hands spreading the calming effect once more through him. He was fighting against it. She felt the strain of her power connect to his cells spreading a calming feeling to surpass the earlier feeling of the thousand needle points as Dr. Tuta and Nurse Mio looked on as Landis began breathing calmly as if he were asleep.

"That's a good boy." Gabrielle smiled gently, her tentative hand from the cold window, smoothed his eyebrow graciously, causing her touch to seem like a godsend from the earlier hell. His breath rose and fell evenly, his eye resting upon her form in partial awe and the other in a placid calming anger. His pale skin was clammy to the touch as his chest rose and fell away, his hands clutching at the bedsheets beneath them. He would not subdue to her magic!!!! 

"It's okay. No one is going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you." Her voice lulled his senses as the medical staff surrounded her in question at her antics. "One day, you'll be happy again." Her countenance contained a small childish smile, sporting her victory only little. "I'll be here for you." Her voice sounded different than when she had initially began to talk to him. 

"What happened?!" Nurse Mio asked, exclaiming in shock. Her brown eyes latching themselves to Gabrielle's form, that was brushing his brow with her tenacious pale cold hands, a frown marring her face from the usual child-like countenance. The girl looked up towards Mio, her dark mysterious eyes blinking in confusion, the thin hand she placed to soothe massaging his brow continued despite the distraction to her eyes.

"He had a particularly bad tummy ache!! He got a little angry but his tantrum is over!! See?" She smiled her brightest, sweetest smile then pointedly looked over towards the somewhat flushing Landis. Her voice so child-like from the deeper calming one he had heard from her was a surprise, besides the fact that she was teasing the greatest winghorder ever!!! 

"Are you sure?" Tuta asked solemnly, his dark eyes scanning her and her form. He noticed that she bore three runes. Three runes were a lot for someone her age except for one who was trained in the military. His dark eyes silently accepted her quiet regal air, shrugging a slight cold warning away from the back of his head, and walked away back to his other questioning patients. 

Mio stood there a few minutes to make sure that the winghorder would not attack the little girl. Satisfied for now, she walked off to where Tuta was helping with one of the army's medical staff. Gabrielle sighed, shaking vivacious lockes to her back, the bento back in her hands. Landis sat up slowly so as to not get the earlier feeling of vertigo he had felt again. 

"Who are you?" He asked underneath his breath. There was hardly anyone who dared to cross him as she was doing. Her calm appearance, child-like effectual and very stoic temperament reminded him of the stoic ninja, Ayame. Elbows propped up on the edge of his bed, Gabrielle smiled, effectively making him feel slightly guilty of trying to harm her, but then again, he liked seeing the horror upon such angelic faces though she didn't scream or anything when he lunged. 

"I thought I told you. I'm Gabrielle." Another quick-timed smile towards his glowering appearance allowed her the time to think for a minute. A tentative finger wrapped a piece of purple hair around its edge and twirled with the strength of a teenager. Her eyes, placid green as they were, flashed to a bright lime as she pouted silently, contemplating for a minute. "I think you need to think who you are."

"Wha?" His mouth opened wide, a gaping hole filled with rather sharp and dangerous-looking teeth, saliva dripping from the pallet and the pink tough tongue on which he spoke. She nodded to emphasize her point. The long strand of curly lavender still twisting upon the finger in abundance as she smiled, an all-knowing smile that could make his blood boil heavily. 

"As I said, who are you? Are you Landis? Are you Sid? What are you? What makes you you?" She explained it to him, chewing on a piece of sushi, the seaweed green texture roughly hitting the side eof her cheek making it bulge to the effect of a chipmunk eating a nut. The childish rosy cheeks expanded and imploded as she swallowed her last sushi piece, the taste of the particular fish sticking well in her mind. Tuna sushi was well appreciated and very well loved by her family. 

"I am a winghorder once named Sid and am instead named Landis. I am a winghorder under the work of my mother, the Grim Reaper." If he could, he would've laughed the same way he did to everyone else instead he didn't. He watched her at the side of his bed, patiently listening to him, a pair of chopsticks in her hands, deeply reminding him of the table he would sit at in the Two Rivers. Patience she had, but anger he wanted to let out.

"What is a winghorde?" Her question came out of curiosity, a mere point to think about. She didn't really know about winghorders except what her parents had told her about when they were in the Dunan Army. Tilting her head in thought, she looked up at Sid expectantly. Sid felt his face sear in half, a pin shook his body as he wanted so much to take that simmering pot of boiling anger upon her pretty face but he knew only even one time, that she would be prepared for him everytime and repulse him back to the bed with the same effect in him as before. 

"Go away." He growled underneath his breath. Gabrielle's hair seemed to flatter her sadness at being told to go away. She nodded obediently, much like a servant, putting her chopsticks down into the bento, the lid closing with a sound smack, her diligent hands working on the knot for the handkerchief. All the while, Landis glared at her full-heartedly, cold dark hate falling onto her poor little form, seemed to rack her body with pure tentative caring even more. His gruesomely chilling one-eyed stare watched her every joint move, such watching that one would seem he was obsessing over her leaving. 

"Leave me!" He exclaimed softly so that Mio and Tuta would not hear. The girl's body made of steel and stubbornness didn't move any faster than if she were deliberately willing to take her time soaking in the chilled glare of hate making the glare become a food supply for her. The second bento was soon wrapped up, and her sandals were on as she lifted herself from the hard wooden servant's stool. Lifting herself up, diligently, seeming to think her made of glass or rather trying to make an impressive show to the hatred directed at her. 

"I'll see you tomorrow when you get out of the hospital all right?" He blinked at her. The white and red ball surrounded that one eye stretching wide till his iris. She still wanted to talk to him? A dark coiling tongue licked his mouth, brown sandy hair sticking to the lips as he closed them. The girl stood awaiting his graciously awaited answer. 

"Whatever." He told her simply. She smiled another one of those all-knowing smiles, ones that could piss off the calmest people around. He watched her with the intensity of a monster upon its prey, a wonderful fleshy prey that was willing to come back into the spider's lair repeatedly. Daring, challenging him to get her, to get the morsel that was so willingly walking into his den of evil, to grasp such pureness and launch his teeth into her flesh, biting, tearing, feeling the husky rolling scent of metallic blood pour from her wounds that he inflicted. 

"Okay, it's a date." She nodded, unaware of the fantasy hidden beneath his mask of heated hate and walked out of the medical hospital without looking back and without running. She wasn't afraid and that he was ready to want to kill, a respectable kill like he would do to that ninja and to the four that he would kill with a team or by himself. 

Once she left, he felt his mind going back to those sick depriving thoughts of cannibalism. It made him hate at what he had become. He was a high-ranked winghorder! He was not supposed to be indulging himself in such dark thoughts!! Even the dark hybrids had a limit to their evil and scary ways of living which tended to be at cannibalism, as it were a sign of becoming a monster, pedophilias, necrophiliacism, and rape of any sort, were looked down upon and often ended making the winghorder become dead by the high courts of Hades. 

He looked over to the cannibalistic thoughts running across his mind, a sujectatory rape of sorts as he thought over and over of the same scene with the same pure angelic blood flowing down his face, through his lips, dripping from his fangs and his tongue just licking it all up from her wounds, the arteries still left to spurt more and more into his waiting mouth as he chewed still on a bit of fresh decaying fingers, hands so delicate and wonderful to eat into his body with his sharp angular teeth. 

Shaking his head, he raised his hands to where his own veins pulsed brilliantly if one looked close enough, the rough callused fingers brushing against the faintest feel of the leathery hard-worked wings that were wrapped around his body in warmth and protection. The soft fleshy feel of the dark black wings seemed to be off, but in truth that was the winghorde's lifeblood and his most fatal area to be hit at. His veins were there and they would bleed his eternal flowing river of crimson through his body unless something broke a hole through them completely obliterating at least one whole wing. 

That would not be an easy thing to try to go against since he had made his wings very tough and defensive especially since they held his life for which he once held a grand care to if one could believe the ludicrisity of it all. Looking over to Mio and Tuta, his growling became obvious to himself. This whole while he had been growling like some trapped animal in a cage. Well, to him it was a cage that should be wrought out for his dark freedom. 

Mio had noticed when she turned to get some more of the medical I.V. kits that the small childish girl had left. Her feet took her over by the winghorder immediately, more in amusement than to make sure he was all right. The nurse knew that she didn't really care for Landis at all, and always felt slightly ashamed by it since she was supposed to care for everyone, but Landis was that one exception. 

"Mr. Landis, how are you feeling today?" Her chirpy voice quickly going into its natural caring mode. His one eye looked up from his thoughts as he smoothed out his wriggling wings to keep them under control. The same soft brown eyes seemed to blink for a response that she was used to. When he didn't answer as he usually did, either with spite or coldness, she tilted her head in slight teasing. "Cat got your tongue, Mr. Landis?" 

"Fuck off, Nursie." 

~~

/(/_^)) Cute Landis!!!! Anyway, I haven't been able to update as often as I wish since I have a horrible Aol connection. Yes, Aohell sucks some major ass. 

My goal with this chapter? I really dun no. I think it is to get him thinking what a winghorder really is. The more cultural stuff will be in the next three chapters when he goes away to a savored place. Gabrielle will be explained later on probably during the fifth chapter. ^^;; I really hope you liked this!! I tried my best to keep in character, which isn't too hard, just a little hard. 

Anyway, PLEASE DONATE A REVIEW TO THE LOKI FOUNDATION WHERE AUTHORESSES ARE MADE TO BE HAPPY AUTHORESSES!!!!!! ^_____^ WE LOVE FANS!!!


	3. Break: One Life

Misgivings  
  
A/N: This is a Landis centered fic!! I hope it to be only of five chapters!! It would do me a great pleasure if you reviewed your thoughts on this!!  
  
WARNING: This chapter contains some necrophiliac issues within the first seventeen paras!! Please beware and do not flame me if you don't heed my warning!!  
  
~~*~~  
  
I'm wrapped up with the darkness of daily life  
I'm struggling with freedom  
I can't peek at my face  
Because of the bright dream I had with you  
  
There is only one thing that  
I can reflect in my dirty mirror  
It is not a fake light  
You're my light  
  
-The Pillows 'One Life'  
  
~~*~~  
Break: One Life  
  
He twitched, body compromised into a rather unique position!! The darkness was calling for him, calling for the child he had named himself after!! His mother was calling for him!! Her dark cloak billowing into the dank musty breeze of a library!! Green eyes sparkling forth from the darkness of the hood!! It was the first time ever that he had seen his dear mother's eyes!!  
  
They were beautiful!! Emerald gems of light in the depth of the darkness, the never-ending abyss as sweet smelling as a rose garden, Peculiar since his mother, his wonderfully dismissing mother, would more than likely smell of death instead!! With one pale hand, he brushed away the dark hood from the eyes and saw not his mother, but her!!  
  
Her sandy blonde hair swept off her shoulders, the breeze carrying a tress here and there, into a small bun at the base of her neck. Her green eyes glowing with the mirth she had held in living life. They were sparkling, as they always had been fresh in Landis's memory. The woman's cheeks were the color of dipped blossoms, cheery and soft to behold in one's eyes.  
  
"Zoe-i!!" A faithless breath was all it took a firmly placed hand onto her cheek as she allowed the warmth to welcome her dead skin, to welcome the corpse that she had become!! The face that he had at first seen turned into decaying flesh!! The feel of the grimy sludge against his hands caused the winghorder to cringe in thought, a sad smile threading upon her lips!!  
  
Her brow rotting to nothing as the stench grew!! The stench of death, dying corpse exploiting the room around him to its enrapturing scent of darkness, to the scent of hopelessness!! Her hand, now bones and cartilage, raised itself to his hand, the one upon her face, taking its flesh and placed it upon his own face!! He was surprised to find that he still had his two eyes. He could see out of them both, one eye, a dark russet brown and the other a bright golden hazel brown.  
  
She nodded silently, leaning forward, her rotting skin touching his baby-soft skin of his face!! Those eyes that still stayed within their sockets were drawing him into their hypnotism!! The magnet of her green-dew eyes drew him in, his face nuzzling her cheek before they both let their lips brush, then open into the dark cavernous of her decaying mouth!! A tongue, rough and course, hardened down by the lack of activity for being buried nearly for five years, made its way, snaking into his own dark chamber!!  
  
The taste of death was extreme, grotesque and something that made him desire her even more, even if she was a rotting corpse hanging onto a wraith-like image!! Slime seemed to fill his touch; the soft gripping hands seeming as if they left their decaying, flaying flesh upon his skin as he let his experience and instinct uphold his reason and logic at bay!!  
  
The stagnant air, decaying flesh aroused him, desiring this thing he held even more!! The illustrious flaying sake of skin and bones, rather slimy and dripping, was not the point of his arousal, of his lust for this being!! It was those eyes!! Those were the same eyes as one of the only women he had ever respected, albeit unwillingly, but he deeply had!!  
  
The green dew eyes closed themselves underneath dripping eyelids, lips returning the soul-breaking kiss of his own!! The rough, dark, cat- like tongue brushing against his own, her breath rasping and moaning against the fact that this being with those hauntingly efficient green eyes was the living dead!! The pity it drew from the back of his mind screamed at him to be sensible as the feeling of lust and the wanting to satiate his lust became nearly unbearable!! It surrounded him!! The husky scent of a decomposing body should have been enough to warn him that this was nothing but a sick dream!!  
  
But it wasn't!!  
  
His roving hands found themselves touching the sins of the flesh, the sins of her flesh!! His mind was jumbled her couldn't think right at all!! What was wrong with him? He wanted the bag of flesh right in his arms, lying down with leg spread but......  
  
He took a step back away from the corpse in his arms!! The wings on his back fully stretching to their height of seven feet, seeming to extend themselves further but didn't!! He felt his canines grow, the dark blood mixing in with the human blood he had tasted before!! The swishing of his spit swallowed down his throat as he stared at her!!  
  
He began to feel the pitiful hatred he had for her, the pitiful respect, and the self-loathing he had for himself surface underneath his rather forbidden thoughts!! The zombie woman stared at him, the self-hatred increasing in his thoughts even more as he looked into those deep emerald eyes he used to stare at twenty four seven and couldn't help but feel regret creeping up along his spine along with the tremors his hate caused to him!!  
  
He visibly shook!! Within the inky black darkness of the void surrounding him, he couldn't do anything!! He wouldn't be able to as he felt his skin crawl underneath, tearing, stripping away his mind till there was nothing but the animal he was inside!! The literal definition of a mind fuck applying pressure to his nearly broken mind, bringing it to the edge, consoling it there with his own emotions manipulating him into the beast as he watched the hauntingly disgusting corpse of the woman, the one that had those damned eyes!!!  
  
Fur rippled, surging forward out of his pores, ripening more holes for even more hair, the excruciating pain being driven through him as he felt his palms be stuck through with five inch nails, the hammers pounding along with his breath, the void morphing around his shape, masking it, confusing even his awareness, the blank awareness he felt!!  
  
It was mind bending to watch, crucifying to bear with the many screams and whiplashes that seemed to shoot out at his back through his chortling throat!! Tears rushing down his broken mind!! Insanity was taking its toll, laughing so horribly at him right then and there!! The putrid taste still in his mouth as the monster he knew he was surged forward, knocking the decaying zombie to the ground, raping her, raping her mind, raping the putrid disgusting decomposing body as he screamed and screamed in the abyss of the darkness for help from his insanity, from the beast inside of him!!  
  
The only onlooker upon this rather bestial and sick act, smirked underneath a hood of black.  
  
Oh, yes!! A literal mind fuck was good to have once in awhile!!  
  
~~*~~  
  
He shot up at once, panting heavily!! The arid air surrounding his form in the darkness certainly didn't help him feel any better!! That dream was sick!! IT was overly sick and yet he knew he had enjoyed it all, secretly wanting to have the ability to mutilate anyone's body!! Growling in hatred, he looked at his arms, the skin bare for once and could only stare at the sickly pale skin that withstood in the light of the moon!!  
  
He couldn't believe that he was that insane to dream even doing that!! Even worse was when he enjoyed the act of consummating with an inanimate being!! Shivers and shudders ran down his spine!! He, a harbinger, shivering from the most crude act he had ever known!! Taking a look over to the tavern, he sighed!! He had come up to the surface from the under ground and had stared at the lake, having fallen asleep in one of the trees, and now woke up, breathing heavily!! Cold sweat beaded down his brow as the hair that usually hid his sealed eye was plastered to his brow!! The black leathery wings on his back twitched even more as he felt himself stretch in the lone moonbeam!!  
  
For once he could say he was truly frightened!! He had never gotten frightened fairly easily but this.........!!no, he didn't even want to think about it!! Settling upon his troubling thoughts, he turned to see Ayame down near Mamie's restaurant!! It was in the late of the night and she shouldn't be doing anything being up this late of night!! Taking a silent leathery glide down the tree, Landis landed on the ground, haggard and worn if one could see his face clearly, hoping, retaining for some sense of sanity that he wished he could retain!!  
  
"Sid!!" That was not Ayame!! He had mistaken the feminine figure to be of his female respected shinobi. The voice was of a different woman's. He watched, definitely hoping this, if it did get as heinous as the repulsive dream before, was also a dream and not reality. He studied the shadowed being from the darkness the trees brought him. His wingspan outstretched allowing him to look like a demonic savage god. The black tint stretching his shadow, seeming to imitate and intimidate the woman.  
  
"This better not be another damned dream!!" He yelled fiercely at the turned woman. He could hear her pause, then slowly her body moved so that her back was not shown to him. "Why are you here?" His dark tenor voice vibrating within his windpipe extracting the sounds he needed to ask questions even if in truth, standing there, he was really ready to shit his black pants in case he was dreaming and would do a definite heinous and evil thing to this woman. "Who ar-"  
  
He stopped short. It was she. Her green eyes sparkling through the light of the moonbeams. Blonde hair fell upon her shoulders, a working kimono on her as she walked over to him. Small timid steps he could always remember. Those eyes were the only ones he could remember ever capturing him into their trap that twisted him to where he was fully under her control, under the spell that the green oculars called for.  
  
"Sid........You need to go home......" The apparition intoned, melodiously much like a songbird ready to sing for the Priest Hikusaak. Those delightful green eyes stared deep into his soul, the sharp point of her glance escaping throughout his black miserable soul that his mother had birthed into the world. The very depth of his black essence slicked into the warming yet sharp eyes she beheld in his view.  
  
"Home?" He questioned her. It had always been like that. He was hardly able to understand her and yet.........He knew she wouldn't answer him directly, rather she had made him try to figure everything about her and her people out, instead. The working kimono swayed in the winter night breeze, tracing the graceful arc of her tenacious words. The timorous mouth she beheld gently grew into a paralyzing smile, one that was hard to see and not be heart-broken.  
  
"Yes. Sid, you need to go home." The melodious form seemed to pause in thought then glanced up towards the moon as if holding back tears that she could not shed in front of the winghorde. The dangerous morbidity shrank the leathery limbs towards his back, believing now she was of no danger to him. She never really was but even so, the woman in front of him encompassed many things he had forever wanted to keep locked.  
  
"Why?" It was the simple question that everyone always asked when they given a mandate by a god or a superior. His eyebrows knit together in confusion. The old scar that sealed his one lid shut seemed to throb with pain from the memories that this one woman triggered. The woman in question simply laughed, a grin spreading across her face as if a good Irish jig song had just come on after listening for five minutes to a sad one.  
  
"Oh, Sid......" A gentle and more than calming pause as she grinned much like a bobcat in the midnight stars. "You are still so full of question that make no sense." Licking her ghostly lips, a nervous habit she had picked up from her childhood, the ghost could only let her smile stay upon the sweet syrupy cheeks.  
  
"You know you need to go. Don't become like them."  
  
"........." He stood astonished at the femme. His dark brunette hair wavered in front of his face with the night breeze that bit at his flesh though in a way seemed to calm his heightened emotions down. She did not understand but as she had told him before on many occasions that she had a good idea of how Winghorde life was from his description of it even if it didn't get the pain of being who she was.  
  
Taking the few feet that stood between them, she glided over to him. Her hands trickling themselves up from her side to his lingering hands. The flesh underneath her haunting fingers were resonating with the midnight cold as he wore nothing but his red sleeveless tunic and his black pants. He had an immunity to some of the cold, more to the degrees of fall weather but this night and nights that were coming were nothing but cold to him.  
  
"You're cold." The woman's green eyes flashed upwards towards his lone crimson ocular, taking in the wondrous scarlet swirling in with the darkness of the pupil. Her timid lips seeming to pout at him as she raised his hands to her creamy soft face.  
  
"No, I'm not." It was true that in fact he wasn't as cold as she truly was in body, but in spirit her ghost was warm as the long summer days back in the Two Rivers when he had helped her harvest. The warmth seemed to spread through him, a conscious deep thought willing him to take care and not do the many reckless things he was willing to do to die.  
  
"Sid, go and sleep on a bed, a comfortable bed for once." She had known he was lying about being cold and in truth se was worried about him. From watching over him for many years, she had come to see him nearly drown himself, get pneumonia, dive through a battlefield to try to save lives that were not as good as his had been, fall off a few cliffs to only get saved, become mainly an evil kinevil, a daredevil against the odds pitted against him.  
  
"I don't want to." He didn't want to leave this apparent phantom of the working woman. A brief smile crossed on display upon her lips then turned into a small pouting frown. His thumb caressed the phantom's cheek. He didn't want this moment to cease for he had in fact missed this for so many years.  
  
"Please......." Her plea was not lost on him and if she wished him to be dead like her and go to the heavens he would gladly as much as he would take his own life before he wanted to injure this creature of the harvested souls the Reaper had taken.  
  
"All right." His sandy brunette lockes shook up and down as he nodded to her. A sympathetic smile increased upon her fresh lips and with a last look to him, raising her hand to his face she kissed one of his own hands and dissipated into thin air, whispering to him as she left for his ears to alone catch.  
  
"I will always be with you even in your darkest times, Sid."  
  
He stood there for a few minutes even if it did seem like a few thousand days instead. His hand gracing the place where she had placed her fingers before leaving him there, standing as a blundering idiot. Sid couldn't help but blink away something at his eyes that stung. These few minutes of peace were broken easily as if a mirror had shattered against a wall upon his birth.  
  
"Hey!! Who's out there?!" A deep voice called out from the emptiness of the dark area. Shaking his head to try to not look so pathetic, Sid whirled towards the distraction in malice. His increasingly wonderful tolerance for breaking his concentration went far as the distraction came into view holding a small lantern. The face behind it seemed to smile gently, hiding behind a smile to mask the fear that stank out of his pores and permeated every pore of his being.  
  
"Landis? What are you doing out here so late?! Everyone's asleep around this time." Landis could only shake his dark lockes as they surrounded his eye. The crimson viewer seeming to glow much like a demon's as he spotted the visage of Lucia, one of the true rune holder's mothers. Her blonde hair seemed to sweep around her as a rather strong gust of wind swept forward. Lucia was one of the few who speculated that he was one of the many people who fought with her.  
  
The woman seemed to patiently await an answer. Though only half a foot taller than the rune-bearer's mother, he intimidated her only slightly. She had never personally gotten anywhere near the bottom of the caverns or anywhere in North Window Castle when he had resided there. The petite woman seemed to snarl somewhat as he moved forward.  
  
"Landis, if that is you, you better answer or else!!" She threatened his moving bulk as he came over to her. Her tanned hands easily finding the grooved handle of her leather whip. She was ready to let out the slashing leather sooner than he would have thought had he read the situation carefully. A sneer curled up on his lip allowing the pearly white of his canines to show through.  
  
"Isn't it scary for such a little warrior like you to run around in the dark where the Grim Reaper can easily get you? Oh, wait...You're not afraid of anything. Nope. You aren't except for one thing..........." Lucia froze up on the whip's handle. Her hand wrapped around the leather but her heart froze in place. There was only one or two times she had ever gotten scared in her time and this was one reminiscent of a night when she had to patrol North Window with one of the most talkative men in the realm!! The talkative guard immediately had turned tail when they had found Sid, burying fish again.  
  
It had only made her freeze for a moment as it took her the time to find out what Landis had been keeping hidden from her. He had lied to her that night about her death being very quick. The Reaper was willing to allow her daughter to kill and then be killed in their best battle, but it had not happened ever. Now, she was not going to be intimidated by a big morbid bully such as Sid.  
  
"Hugo is such a precious child, especially when he is an only one, isn't he, Lucia? Oh, well...Don't worry. The both of you have a while to be reaped." Then ending, he smiled, the whip lashing out towards him, latching and wrapping itself firmly around his forearm as she anticipated. Her dark eyes glowered at the degrading and morbid Winghorde ready to lash out with her fist if needed.  
  
"That's good then, Sid. You will not scare me and you better not try to divert Hugo's attention from helping the Flame Champion Geddoe." She growled, dragging the willing Winghorde towards her, angrily. The whip rubbing roughly against his scarred pale skin causing the whiteness to flush. His somewhat crazy laugh came out, happy that she had finally learned, something amused with it all as he finally got the mother hen to smile as well.  
  
"I will not...........But, call me Landis now, Chief Lucia." He smiled, causing his weird laughter to come out. The whip unleashed from his arm as he went over to the tree, grinning at the fruitfulness of having fought. He loved the thrill of battle but even more he loved the sickening deaths that littered the battlefield. Picking up his scythe, he stretched out the leathery black wings, no longer a hinderance, and flapped them so he floated above the ground.  
  
"I see." She watched as he lifted upwards, gently floating to the higher castle grounds. The tavern lights illuminated only lightly as most of the occupants were summed up into five people: Ace, Joker, Anne, the other town drunk (besides Ace and Joker), and Nei. He knew that the front door was well guarded by at least one Harmonian, one Grasslander, and one Zexan. Rather a rather annoying dog and another Grasslander only guarded the tavern. He decided to take the most noticeable route, one that may lend him a bed to lay down on.  
  
Placing a cold hand upon the weathering wood, he was met with the gentle creaking into the warmth of the tavern. The opening of the door caught everyone's attention within. The Grasslander guard only blinking at the sudden appearance from the darkness of the Winghorde. The surprised faces seemed to grow pasty white. His pale skin contrasting to the warm light inside. Anne looked up from her bar, scared and unsure what to serve the winghorder.  
  
Landis only smirked, allowing himself through the door, closing the weatherworn wood to a clasp upon the hinges. The cold shut out from their faces, but their faces still waiting to thaw out from the frozen surprise upon their faces. The winghorder could only shake his head, smiling as he sat on one of the plush stools, sitting across from Anne.  
  
The white haired bartender gaped then composed herself easily. Her somewhat motherly manner returning. She began wiping her bar, gently as if the scarred wood was indeed glass, fragile and easily broken. Her face looked upwards as if she hadn't seen him come in. The pale blue eyes she beheld seemed to look deep into that one crimson eye he had. Only a gentle shaking of his visage told her she had no need to be the counselor of his problems. They were different, besides he had no need anymore.  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
"Do you have Two Rivers Sake?"  
  
"Y-yes. That will be five hundred potch, though." She wasn't sure if Landis even kept money. From the rumors she heard, he was one of the others. The others she classified as people who were very lethal and even more too quiet and secretive. She was not one of a friend who kept their secrets to themselves by much. Geddoe was the only one who she seemed to trust in her bar since she was also grateful he had let her have the bar in the first place.  
  
Upon finding the drink he named, she quickly gave him the half-filled glass. The liquid swirling around it, half-full in a motion that suggested it was nothing but air within the glass. He raised his glass to her, placing five hundred potch upon the bar top. His hands skimming past the coins easily as he drank the liquid down his throat. The burning sensation scourging his throat, the warming liquid easily passing through his esophagus. The after-effects twisted only his senses to where they were dulled by the potent drink.  
  
He could remember when he had the sake before. He had gotten innocently drunker than he should have. His tongue had loosened and he had ended up talking to her and fell asleep as she treated him for his drunkard wounds. Taking a firm nod to snap out of his reverie, he tried to somewhat smile without being creepy at Anne, but well, he was not that good at it. Landis exited the tavern through the door into the castle, wandering the halls for the hospital.  
  
Finding the door to the hospital rooms, he paused. A sharp intake of breath as his rough callused fingers brushed against the firm wood, opening the moaning drones of patients who had not yet been silenced for their sleep. Dr. Tuta was sleeping, uncomfortably on his desk, while Mio had fallen asleep in a chair by a patient's side. Taking deliberately quiet steps, he moved to the most private and most inviting hospital bed.  
  
His clawed feet made silent scrapes that would not make even greatest hearing mouse wonder. The rustling of his wings as they fidgeted was very natural. He knew that if anything, a hospital bed would be open to the public much more than any of the other rooms. He almost knew no one and didn't really care to but he was. Landis paused. His eye surveying the room once more before going underneath the soft cotton blanket, a normal hospital standard one, but it worked for its purpose.  
  
The leathery black wings folded themselves protectively around his body, waiting in case they would get attacked. Silently wishing his nightmare and guilt would end; he wished for his death once more much to the marring of an individual's visage, which could not be easily seen from the shadows. The person stood straight up from the position they had been in and easily vanished without a trace in the air that they had been there.  
  
All the meanwhile, Landis came to terms on why he never drank alcohol the next morning.  
  
~~*~~  
  
O______O ...........This was a freaky chapter. Besides that? Gah. I feel so tireeeeeed right now!! -_- This chapter is making me even a bit scared of all the flames I'm probably going to get because it contains necrophilia and its just tooooo damned weird right now. Well, truth be told, I was hoping for it to be really creepy, but I wasn't sure if this was too creepy or what.  
  
Now that I'm finished with this chapter, I'll begin on the next one!! This series I thinks will only last to about six or seven chapters. I just want to finish with it because it is really hard not to try to start brreaking into song or something. Great, now I'm imagining Yuber sing to sweet transvestite from RHPS. Spirits, shoot me.  
  
Hold on, wait.........even worse imagery........  
  
Landis singing Like a Virgin. (O)_o ~~~~ Authoress hast lost it.  
  
Hm....Well, I just finished reading The Alabaster Staff from the Rogue series. I love rogues!! **brandishes her "love rogues" button** I really think that Demok and Kersyhn should get together because she rocks and he is such a imaginary hot guy..........at least in my mind. I think I'll go searching for any of the Rogue series fanfics and see what they have...........but besides that, I am doing relatively well. School driving me crazy and just the reasoning to everyone else, that yes, I am insane.  
  
Well, gtg. I'm getting too sleepy. LOVES TO ALL!!!  
  
Please hit the review button and review. TO MY READERS: MY SANITY IS IN YOUR HANDS!! YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE!! ^_)); 


	4. Conversation 2: Spark of Life

Misgivings ((WARNING!!! PLEASE READ AHEAD IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ REALLY LONG AUTHORESS RANT!!!))

A/N: This is a Landis-centered fic. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Reviwers: I want to thank great many of you for your opinions. Next is my unsettling happiness at those reviewers that were kind enough to thoroughly read through my entire chapters. The mistakes you pointed out to me are right and I understand more often than not, I miss things before I post. I thank you for your extensive reading and even more your suggestions. I'll try to write more eloquently in English. Yes, yes, English is my second language so I have trouble with grammar. I wish that you would respect all types of social standings within any groups or such. Goths are people. Fucking deal with that. Poetry is fucking poetry. It doesn't matter whether or not you are reading something as creative as a Shel Silverstein poem or "The Red Wheelbarrow" which is virtually simplistic in all thought.

Anyway, I am sorry if I sound angry but I am. I do not intend to get overly angry because of your reviews or flames, but it is to show that yes, I do have a long way to go in my own writing that frustrates me. My plot however is very diverse and resides more in the gothic and supernatural realm. That is why eyes tend to glow even if it doesn't seem to be in the game. I haven't played the game within two years because I borrowed and finished the game in all three perspectives during one summer in which I did join the SCB then. So I cannot exactly remember some of the more exact things that happen within each person. The reason this is mostly on Landis is because I wanted to make a story based on my favorite winghorder's past. This is a story that delves into the reason that why he wants to fight for the firebringer and also why he is so fucking morbid.

The last things before I get on with the next chapter are about my two characters. Gabrielle is going to be explained within the last two chapters while Zoe-I is explained in either this one or the next two. Neither are Mary-sues, simply because Zoe-I isn't beautiful, mysterious, or exactly a charming person whose huge or anything. She's just a normal woman who is embraced by Landis's memory. Gabrielle is not one for she doesn't get with Landis or anything. Read and you will find out what part she plays within the rest of his existence. Give people a damned chance, thank you very much for enduring this long rant. I am sorry to those I've offended but this is something that needed to be put off my chest.

Thank you.

Summary of what happens before the story with Landis's relationships:

Ayame and Sasari (when I started this story) were already together and married. In the SCB they have had two children and are still together. Ayame is considered to be a friend to Landis simply because he spars a lot with her and is more or less an acquaintance. Lucia is the only one from the Dunan Unification War that can see Landis as Sid. (Not a lot of people remember him, but she does because she experienced a similar experience with him.) Lastly, Hortez VIII is merely a business associate because of the fact that Landis keeps the caverns free from being overgrown with monsters for the people of Budehec.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

The leathery black wings folded themselves protectively around his body, waiting in case they would get attacked. Silently wishing his nightmare and guilt would end; he wished for his death once more much to the marring of an individual's visage, which could not be seen from the shadows. The person stood straight up from the position they had been in and easily vanished without a trace in the air that they had been there.

All the meanwhile, Landis came to terms on why he never drank alcohol the next morning.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

_"The Moon, she hangs like a cruel portrait_

_Soft winds whisper the bidding of the trees_

_As this tragedy starts with a shattered glass heart_

_And the Midnightmare trampling of dreams_

_But oh, no tears please_

_Fear and pain may accompany Death_

_But it is desire that shephards it's certainty_

_As we shall see...."_

_-"Her Ghost in the Fog" Cradle of Filth_

Conversation: A Place For My Head

LLLLLLLLLLLLL

"Where are you going?" He knew that he would have to tell her. Ever since he had woken up earlier, Landis had been dealing with his slight headache. He hadn't drunken that much from the tavern but then again, he didn't have to. He was a natural lightweight when it came to the sinful drink that made even the most respected easily as the most despicable.

The silent pounding within his skull was nothing to the building anger he was trying to keep under control. He needed perfect control until he was to leave the spirit-forsaken place of Budehec castle. He had to in order to leave. It had started snowing outside. The deep rich white that fell drew those that watched in fervor, many of them children.

He had found his lone companion right there with the group of students. Ernie's mother, Christine, watching over her charges a gentle smile upon her face. The smile only faltered when Landis had initially appeared. On his back, he upheld a canvas bag instead of his scythe. The beautifully sharp edged weapon was sheathed into the rod so that it appeared to be a harmless stave.

Gabrielle had instantly noticed him and he knew that she wouldn't understand why he was leaving. It was something that he did every year during the winter since the winter contained nothing but festivities for those who had merry lives even in this time of war. He had looked oddly upon the child that he was friendly enough with, amusing the child enough to cock her head to the side.

"I am leaving for the Two Rivers." His voice seemed off to the small child. Her lavender hair crinkled upon the green sweater Muto had given to her for her birthday that year. Muto was the one who had invited her family to come and fight for the war in their own way. Her small peach hands clasped what seemed to be a bundle of cloth. Her face contorted into a childish pout that a child of eleven years should never try. Landis only watched, bemused with her attempt.

"Why don't you stay for Christmas?" She wanted him to stay so that he could see the obvious happiness she and her family had. She had noticed that whenever she talked with Landis, his one bright ocular seemed to be harsh and cold though gleeful when he was causing someone discomfort, like Mio or even Dr. Tuta. Few people could understand the man she had come to somewhat translate. He was looking as if she might be a good piece of meat over a spit. She gulped inwardly. It was a look she had often found herself at the end of, but also she was afraid of it even more.

"I have obligations." He answered her. The teacher was watching the serious exchange in mere confusion. Many of the residents had passed the rumor that Landis, if you met him at all, was the devil's right hand man. Gabrielle looked down from her stare into his one scarlet jewel. She was trying to make sure he stayed but she had her doubts.

"What obligations?" She raised her voice, concerned for the welfare of her friend, a dangerous and lethal friend, but a considered friend nonetheless. Gabrielle wanted to share her joy with him even if his sadness and anger seemed to overtake her often in their conversations.

"I need to pay a few people a visit." He sounded casual but it was harsh with the undertone of graveness in it. In that voice was the sound of someone from long before she had entered into his life. His past hung onto him worse than anything she had known, and were the worse part of him. Biting upon her lip, Gabrielle looked up to see the frowning winghorder. Seeing this, she was slightly angered at herself and not having any ability of persuasion work upon this frightful creation.

"I'll see you when you come back. May the spirits keep you." Gabrielle sighed in defeat. She knew that Landis could take care of himself. He had for nearly fifteen years. Taking another sigh, the lavender-topped child turned to watch her friend with sad green eyes. He nodded, affirming his decision to leave anyway. Moving away from her without a goodbye, as he said too many good-byes in his life, Landis began his long trip. It would take a few hours by flight if he caught good thermals to glide easily on.

His tight shirts, three layers, (at least two fleece) and two layers of tight pants warmed easily this early in the wintry weather he would have to fly though. His dark eye scanned the gates as he walked away, showing Cecille, after grinning suggestively towards her, his papers to leave as she and the other guards had gotten a command to not let 'certain' people through. He being one of seven. (Shabon, Ernie, Shannon, little Viki, Kidd, Hortez VIII, and himself.) Reasons pertaining to running away, brainlessness, losing oneself's way, being troublesome, and in his case, for want of death and destruction.

His walk was quick as he was let through. Running through the frosted plains, he kept his pace deliberate and speedy, agile in case something suddenly came into view before he flew on a really excellent thermal. His began unfolding yet still close to his body as a hill began speeding up in his vision. Upon reaching the anticipated downhill, they opened wide; a thermal rising to meet his leather-bound wings as the wind underneath them lifted his agile body gradually upwards.

The dark flesh melded into the gray sky. A quick updraft thermal and he was set. Climbing higher and higher, he felt the bonds of society, a society he would gladly purge, be relinquished. Euphoria of bliss set upon his shaken form of death, allowing his life to break free of that mortality and dimmed view that the mortals below him endured. He was free much like from an eternal nightmare and his mind didn't set into the reason of why he went.

He was only slightly happy. The bliss nothing more than epheramel. He was nothing. He connected with nothing and was free to ways that were unknown to those below them. Once his proud civilization had lived this way, but the darkened days of eight years ago set once more upon his mind. Taking a sigh at the remembrance of many days before this flight, his wings took to the familiar flight patterns, swooshing with a flap of the leather appendages.

LLLLLLLLLLLL

It was autumn, the soften gold of the wind spreading amongst the Two River folk easily. The harvests out in the fields were plentiful, filled to the brim with the seeds that had been sowed. Chaco, a winghorder of great importance, flew above this crop harvesting. His features were full of amusement. He didn't understand these humans so well, but what he understood was the fact that they were almost as complex as winghordes.

In fact, being so engrossed into the humans' activities; Chaco didn't notice the flap of wings behind or the looming blade that came with them. With a husky voice, meant to be dark and manipulative, spoke to the ringleader of thieves within a single word as the thing's tongue lashed out, licking behind Chaco's ear.

"Boo." With that said, the sandpaper tongue went back into the dark formed mouth behind canines that could make a tiger jealous. A scream after a shudder down his spine, Chaco's eyes darted behind him as he turned slowly afraid to find what he knew he would supposedly except that he hadn't. Worried, he looked over the field, darting his eyes back and forth.

"SID!! I know you're here!!! Get back here!! I'm gonna kick your ass and then rip your wings off!! You stupid faerie!!" A few of the harvesters looked up to see the winghorde leader scream like a child even if he was fourteen. The one called Sid shook his head from his hiding place in the shadow of one of the harvested carts. A grin pasted upon his ghoulish face. His feral grin, wide and menacing was something to behold. It made his face seem evil yet as a woman worker from the fields came up to the cart that most of the workers were avoiding now, it seemed amused.

Sid was entertained to say in the least. She was a brave one. The worker put her load in then looked to the shadowed winghorder. She had alarming green eyes. Her eyes, he supposed, were her brightest features. She certainly wasn't Dunan. Most Dunan residents didn't have green eyes nor her other alarming feature, he saw peeking underneath her straw thatch hat, blonde hair. He was surprised but surmised that she was extended family or a refugee from another country seeking protection.

"Could you please go somewhere else to hide? The workers need to get the harvest finished and you're stopping most of them from putting their loads in this cart or else it will be their hides they will have to pay with." Her body was grotesque to the standards of the Dunan men, but in her own way she seemed kind of free-spirited as if even with the entire dirt upon her face and arms, she didn't really worry about much. She had freckles standing out against her rosy-tinged cheeks. He nodded, after a few seconds of thinking that he would do what this groundling of a peasant would wish.

Sighing in relief, she smiled and began to walk back to her working field. Snatching her arm before she could fully turn to go, he allowed an amused smile slip into place. She looked back, astonished at him. This was the first time anyone ever paid her attention unless it was about her ugly looks compared to the skinny, gaunt women who personified the beauty of Dunan. (Think Geisha.)

"Y-yes?"

"Huh. Who are you?" He reassured her with a toothy grin that seemed to be slightly reassuring, if it weren't for those elongated canines that made the winged man appear like a demon in the shadow of the carriage. Her wide-open eyes reflected her fear. He could find her soul deep within them almost as if she didn't know that her eyes were the avatars of her thoughts.

"K-K-Kawasumi, Z-Zoe-I," she replied to him. Her shivering continued at his touch upon her forearm. His touch sparked her skin to jump, as she was a deer caught into his trap ready for the slaughter to begin with the reaping scythe he held in his other hand. "A-And you?"

"Makonawa Sid," He briefly spoke seeing her hesitance and at once, he wanted her not to be afraid around him. Shaking his head clear of such inane thoughts, he retracted his grip and turned tail to the city beyond the fields. Looking down, Zoe-I noticed he had left now bruises or cutting marks like she had expected with his grip upon her skin just an imprint of where it once was. Deftly her hand traced it and she noticed within the caress of her fingers, his touch, though almost chilled to the bone, screamed out against the muffled cries he held in what he wanted to be but never could.

Being an empath, or a person able to discern emotions and such by touch or glance or even presence, she could tell his feelings. Most women called this woman's intuition but she knew it wasn't. Shaking her head clear of the rather mild and slightly frightening distraction, she returned to her work of reaping the crops the farmers had sown into the once hard-packed ground. Her co-workers congratulated her as she returned although one could tell that behind those somewhat jovial faces they thought piteously of her.

'He wasn't that frightening,' She reassured to herself.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Since the Dunan Unification War had ended, Sid had gotten used to walking around during the day though he preferred the moist, humble abodes of the caverns and sewers. His wings folded against his back as he walked towards the forest by the fields. The fields were fully done as everyone was left celebrating the festival. Looking up from the path that she took home, Zoe-I noticed the familiar hulking figure and immediately wondered if she should call out to him.

As uneasy as she was, she let bygones be bygones and called out to him.

"Makonawa-san!!" Sid blinked upwards, half-expecting her to flee and scream from his ghastly appearance. He hadn't take a bath in a few days and his hair was strung with bits of pieces of dirt and leaves from wandering around the forest. There was the occasional speck of blood upon his blue tunic but nothing otherwise. Walking over with a bright carefree smile that Sid had never been on the receiving end of before; she caused him to blush somewhat at the sudden kind attention.

"Kawasumi-san." He stated coolly as if he hadn't known her before as anything but an unkind rival though his mind told a different story. He was infuriated with himself and the words that he had said in that tone as if he didn't care. He did but it was uncomfortable without explanation of why.

"Where are you going?" She asked, curiosity getting the better part of her mind. Sid didn't trust his tongue not to flop uselessly in his mouth as he tried to answer. He opened his mouth to reply but quickly shut it and pointed down the path in clear view as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He was not going to allow some HUMAN to screw him up he thought as he gritted his teeth behind his closed lips.

"Ah, I see!! Can I come with you? My home is that way." He scrunched up his nose and nodded, not really caring too much. As they walked, he noticed her work clothes matched her green eyes well; the material and color different than the others in the field even if it was smudged with dirt. Her work hat, a flat disc of yellow straw wrapped in an intricate pattern, made it hard for those green eyes to be shown.

"My house is just beyond the river here. Once we go there, I can give you some dinner for walking me to my small home." The path they walked on was very noticeable from the rather dense greenery. The wandering eye could find flowers of almost any kind as they passed through. When he eventually looked through, he saw that they had to cross the river on the stones that came out of the rushing water. He wondered why she didn't make a wooden bridge instead of depending upon slick moss-covered stones.

However, he didn't voice his thoughts as he used his clawed feet to grip onto the moss-covered, water-slicked stones. Each time he jumped he wondered how well she could manage this. Once landing on the soft bank of the river, he waited for her. His eyes watching as she jumped onto the first stone, barely slipping on her grip. Kawasumi had darkened feet from working barefoot in the fields and also walking alongside the winghorder through the forest, so her grip was good until the water created in its stead, mud.

She took a few more jumps till she was on the fifth away from the bank when she jumped onto the fourth and slid. Her grip failing, screaming as she fell backwards, hitting a rock underneath the water knocking her unconscious. Sid looked alarmed as he dropped his scythe immediately and flew overhead. The winghorder easily found the floating hat, but the body he was looking for was not attached to it. He scanned the river for her form with his myriad-colored eyes.

A few meters away from the rocks, a slim had slid up, a body partially following. His wings beat then pressed his body as he dived. The leathery attachments outstretched as he came near, his hands grabbing her slim arm pulled her up from the icy water. She was completely drenched and was weighing his wings down, taxing them.

'This wouldn't have happened if I merely told her to get in my arms and fly with me over!!' He cursed himself deep in his mind. Though he hated to admit it, he had grown to respect her only slightly, though he considered her vulgar-looking, except for her hair and her eyes, weak, and mostly ignorant. She was brave enough to ask him to go somewhere else as if it really mattered to him whether or not he was causing trouble.

He reached down with his other arm and pulled her wet body up to his chest, so that she didn't weigh him down so much. Flying down to the bank, he landed softly upon the dark brown sand. His wings almost giving out as they landed. Sid's otherworldly attachments were screaming in pain and exhaustion. He didn't have much practice carrying another person's weight as he flew with water weight added on from their soaking bodies and clothes.

Laying her down, almost lying himself down as well, he checked for any signs of breathing. Doing this he kept wondering he was saving this human who made him contently understand her. She seemed to be so foolish and brave to befriend a demon like him and yet she understood him partially because of the mask they both had to wear. She had to act much like an obedient dog when her lord came into view and he was the darkness itself when he had to keep people away from him, though he didn't mind having Chaco near.

He noticed no signs of breathing and surmised that she must've had held in water. Tuta's lessons, he remembered vividly as he watched the children below from a tree, were on revival of a drowned friend or person. Quickly, remembering the steps he had learned from listening and watching he opened her mouth. His hands shook in either disbelief at himself or at his uncertainty to save her. He had never attempted to save anyone from drowning before, and he only attempted saving people that the leader of his army had ordered him to.

'Shit.' He thought as his lips fell upon hers, forcing air much needed into her lung capacity. His face picking up as he placed both claw-like hands on her chest, flat to the palm. The coldness seeped through his fingertips causing him to realize how long she must've not been able to breathe. He pounded five times then checked to see her breathing. No sign and he pushed more to her lungs via lip lock. Repeating his pounding onto her breastbone that he felt with certainty was going to break, he heard a small rattling cough, then some more coughing as her face turned to the side.

Kawasumi's face was almost a pale blue but slowly the rosy condition came back to warm her.

His rather dark smile planted upon his face as wild grass green eyes stared at him, confused. Knowing she would be weak and disorientated, he picked up her slim wet form in his arms. She didn't protest, her mind confusing her more than ever as she went over the events before she had obviously come to such a close death. His wings encircled the two, keeping them safe from the winds that always came with the rivers. In her muddled thoughts, she watched his smile, interested in it.

Finally she spoke.

"You look handsome when you look happy.........." She told him aloud then drifted off to sort her bewildered thoughts.

Sid barely kept his pale skin from becoming inflamed pink.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Within a year after saving the petite woman, Sid often walked her home, becoming accustomed to her and top soil creatures easier than before. He accompanied her when he could since he had deigned to become a partial resident of her home in the forest by the river. He tended to trust the small human feeling weird by his deep trust in her and also the fact that she created such weird arousing feelings in him. Queasiness and bedazzled effects when she often touched his skin. He kept his cold skin from flaming red but it was often with control.

As he eventually succumbed to living in the forest, he took to bounty-hunting which was occasionally sparse in bounties but it had been something he was good at and she had suggested it anyway, so Sid saw no problems with his job. He slept outside the tiny hut, her and her father, Claude Kawasumi, had lived in though now her father had died eight months before trusting Sid to guard her in the forest at least.. His things arranged all around his tree when he slept though he often slept with his scythe and blood-splattered tunic on him always, besides a small blanket to cover his legs from cold.

But this day, something deep had changed in his partial friend. She seemed to quiet and when she had gotten home, she had wounds and bruises to tend to. He had come to his home earlier than usual, trying to find a man named Watari but the ninja with a bounty had alluded him. He glided down to the ground and entered her small thatched hut. Her severity in the look of her wounds told him that they were a little deep, but on closer inspection they were not mortal wounds.

"O-oh!! Hello Makonawa-san." Her voice though weak and her body showing a chest wound and a shoulder wound, she tried to smile welcomely in his direction but the hint of a grimace hid behind her smile. He was enraged. How dare someone do this to someone he had come to respect, dealing with the words of many against her everyday and still carefree as he remembered and to eventually come home wounded?! He growled low, an inhumane growl coming from deep inside his soul.

"Stop!! JUST STOP!!" Angered deeply, he grabbed her arms, looking to see where her wounds and bruises were. They were human sized bruises and a short curved sword, a wakizashi more than likely along with the shoulder wound, made the chest wound. The cuts deep, but not too deep. She had been trying to bandage herself but was failing miserably. Exasperated, he took the bandages from her and started wrapping up her chest wound first after putting ointment from a small kit she held. His thin hands were deft and agile as he finished the job with speed and tied the bandages off.

He then proceeded to the do the shoulder wound as well. His thoughts were dark and mirthless. A tentative tanned hand touched his hand causing to great effect a deep shock to go through him. Angered enough, he put his glance at the woman who dared to try to calm him. Her green eyes were filled with tears the like he had never seen for she had never cried in front of him or anyone before.

"Thank you........You're the only one who has ever helped me..........I've never been able to repay you and I'm so sorry for that.......I'm so......weak." She clenched her mouth shut to keep a wail from sorrow to envelop her. She didn't want to appear so sad in front of him. Kawasumi had tried her best to not allow him to see this side of her for she knew that Sid hated things that broke easily or were weak. Now she knew he hated her.

Deep down she cried. On the outside, Sid cautiously picked her chin up and stared straight into her eyes with both of his. His glare was malicious but not directed at her though she felt for sure that it was. He reached over with his mouth and began licking her blood. The corrosive browned liquid that had splatter upon her face from her wounds were licked clean as he grinned more so from a tinge of bloodlust than care.

"S-Sid-kun?" She stuttered eyes afraid and body trembling. His rough tongue was coarse but very thorough as every spot upon her face was all licked clean. It wasn't exactly a frightening experience nor a heart warming one, but kind in its own affectionate way. The darkened liquid upon his tongue intensified his rage but he bridled it telling the red-hot emotion that it needs to wait only a little while later. Right now, he had to calm Kawasumi.

"Shh......Now tell me, poppet, what exactly transpired." Nodding, hands coming up to feel the cleanly licked face, she told him what she could remember. Her hands wringing into her work pants. Her shirt had been discarded to treat her wounds better. As she spoke she replaced her work tunic with her eveningwear, warming her up against the mounting chill.

Sid's eyes darkened as she continued her story. Apparently, the master of the lands she worked and lived on had attacked her. Lord Ortega, a man of power in his own right, was a hater of powerful women fearing his own inferiority that he held against his mother, Lady Shizuka Ortega, the only woman leader of the realm near Two Rivers.

Kawasumi's story conceded of her wish for her freedom and the many hurtful accusations that she had been told of. Simply because she was not the slim women with the long silk dark hair or marble skin or a face of ice, she was considered sinfully ugly. Sid had to understand this after all; it was true in this country. With fair hair, tawny coloration, and a slightly curvaceous body, she was considered horribly deformed almost. Most men pitied her because she would more than likely become nothing more than a prostitute when she would be able to be free from her servitude. A woman could not survive long without a husband financially or politically at all in Dunan.

Sid knew differently. After all, spending a year as her walking companion and friendly face in the dark forest, he had gotten to know her quite well. Dimwitted, yet always hopeful, she held spirit whenever she got into a spat with him or any of the farmers though she often stilled her tongue when she was boiling well with rage. Carefree, she often laughed when he pulled any number of particular jokes, even harmful ones, and told him the exasperated often spooked expressions on her fellow men's' faces.

It was simple, as she had told him. The master would let her go if she could find any man to even marry her off because of her sinfully ugly body. The master knew that she had no chance to pay a man and so he knew that she wouldn't get married. She had then retorted angrily about any man that would marry her would turn out to be a better human than he was.

Which turned out to be the wrong move. Sid sighed casually then felt the tinge of blood upon his lips. In the process of her describing of what happened, he had bitten his lip with a sharp canine to keep from storming out and killing Lord Ortega.

"Well, you certainly can't die. He'd search all over for you to repay your debt yet you have no 'real' debt to pay off." Kawasumi nodded numbly with her blonde hair still held within its ribbon's hold. Frowning, she wiped her nose. Her story was told through a mix of tears and frowns. Her body hurt dully. The ache was being the least of her worries.

"I deserve my freedom to live where I want." A determined and angry tone returned to her weak voice. Her throat was still parched dry as she had fetched some water from the river to drink for herself. Sid had only slightly protested but he knew that if he moved from the spot he would more than likely charge at Ortega and attack all his men and women.

"Poppet, there is a way I can help you." He suggested maliciously, tongue peeking out to lick his cut lip. She paused in thought, raising her eyes to meet his. Smoothing back a few stray tresses, she shook her head no. She understood very well what he meant but she would want nothing to do with the lives of the innocents within the castle to murder them if they got in the way. They had no way to fight against their ruler and found it often futile for even one to try and kill him unless it was a person of his equal stature, besides war was already enough bloodshed for one country.

"No. If you do that, they'd know it was more than likely me and then they'd also go after your people too. I see no other way than putting my head into the noose and find someone who would marry me. I would've needed to do this anyway, but with my looks, I'm not going to make a very good match at all." She sighed dejected. Nothing could help her.

"What if I pay a man to 'marry' you?" She shook her head at this suggestion. Blonde hair fell around on her shoulders, a bit sticky from the corrosive life she had spilt. Her hands wrung the tunic as she thought, which was a hard thing to do for that long.

"He'd know. Lord Ortega owns almost all the mercenaries and pubs. He has his eyes and ears out probably. Y'know, since he is a powerful man." Sid's darkened lockes seemed to shroud his eyes in thought. He couldn't do much of anything besides try to find a man that would like the walking crippled woman. Then with clarity an idea hit him like his scythe falling on top of his head from resting on the shelf behind him.

Which did.

"Yuh huh huh huh.........When do you want your freedom?"

"Now, but I can't have it unless the requirements are fulfilled."

"Well, How would you like to get married........"

"To who?"

"Who else? Me, poppet."

"............You....Your kidding right?"

"Yuh huh huh huh!!! Your wish is my deadly work."

"Really?!"

"Off me, poppet."

"Gomen Nasai!! Arigato!! ARIGATO!!!"

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Lord Ortega stuck to his violent promise. Spitting towards the couple from hell as he thought they were he watched from the pavilion where the Shinto priest was wedding them. She wore the only white kimono she could afford, which with two or three gifts to add made her seem a bit of a merchant's daughter instead of a slave. Her blonde hair was ornate in braids coming down her back, and the ornamental headdress she wore was from Mizuho Arisa's marriage to Tamari Arisa.

Sid had no idea what type of formal wear he should have worn but with Chaco's explicit instructions, under pain of eternal whipping by Kale, which sent a shiver often down on any male winghorder's back, he dressed in a traditional hakama and Haori. To say he was still getting used to wearing something akin to a skirt was unconditionally right. He was ready to bolt from the wedding yet he knew that he wanted to help this puppet of entertainment, a puppy that had taken into his care, to be free from the strings of someone else.

The ceremony was quick and effortless and at the end as they shared the sake with one another, he wondered why he dared to bolt away. Reviewing the facts, he wouldn't have to deal with anyone messing around with his poppet, and even more, he could finally get his share from the winghorde treasure. (Only married children of the winghorders got a prized treasure from the leader each.) Chaco's little girlfriend had walked his now wife in.

Chaco and at least ten of the winghorders, even twenty if he was lucky came to see the spectacle of the most loathed winghorder getting hitched to the most deformed woman of the country. To his own race he was nothing more than a deformed child with a personality gone wrong. Taking their final vows, Sid silently led his wife out of the ceremony hall to meet the meager feast that awaited their few invited guests such as the maids, a few of her co-working women, and of course Chaco.

Chaco was unbeknown his little brother at times. He loved playing practical jokes upon the boy since he was small and could fly. Zoe-I smiled at him and welcomed him in as her family as well, having to catch her family trying to steal from more of the wealthier ladies who came to see the traveling circus of monster-like children and slaves below her station.

Going to their small shelter in the forest, Sid carrying her, more than once "dropping" her to only pick her back up. He laughed as she screamed in terror and he stopped when her hold on him was starting to make him turn blue. Once entering their faint dwelling, Zoe-I twirled herself around, holding onto her head in a vain attempt to understand the dizzying events.

Once she understood the terms they had agreed to, she no longer wanted to pretend anymore. In the end it would bite her back. Smiling, she began undoing her braids, slowly so she could relish the fact that the worst part was over for her nerves.

Sid saw that her happy smile turned slightly darker but still bright enough to light up the night and make the moon jealous. He understood what was done and now understood his repercussions. They would not have a "honeymoon" at all. They were not physically or mentally really married. They were just technically married so she could live freely without the outstanding oppressive lord watching her every footstep.

It was then that Sid made possibly his worst choice ever.

Along with his best.

Swaying over to her turned back, a claw-like finger brushed away some of her wavy golden tresses. His mouth seemed to lick the underside of her ear completely not missing an inch with its length. Then with a nip of his pointy canines drawing a little blood from her ear, he sucked causing Zoe-I to suck in air not only in surprise but to keep from moaning intensely. It was no wonder a woman could not stand up to the so-called "silver kiss."

"S-Sid......Wh-What are you.....eep.....doing?" She asked to him questioning his antics. Eeping when his tongue slid along her jugular. A jaguar ready to make his kill. He was antagonizing her and more than ever confusing her into a state of bewilderment in which Alice of Wonderland's conversation with the Cheshire Cat seemed simplistic and first grade speak.

"Who said I am not getting my wife on our wedding night, poppet?" A malicious smirk took precedence in his eyes, toying with her as nicked her neck and sucked. The gentle sucking from his mouth caused her to get heady and dizzy. "I am to have my wife, at the least on my honeymoon, sweet."

And with that she threw all deals out the window.

LLLLLLLLLLLL

Arriving at the Two River's lands, Landis dropped to a low swoop to finally land near the decimated forest that had once been his home. A mirthless frown marred his sadistic lips as he walked forward to the one house he trusted to keep him up for the night. The winter was too chilly to deal with outside like usual and he didn't want to deal with his dead wife's ghost any more than usual.

He loved her visits and yet he hated them considering he missed her deeply and the memories of more than only half a decade before came into his vision. Going up to the small cottage that withheld a wonderful family that had nursed him back to health once, he knocked upon the weathered door. A girl immediately came out. Her long black hair shinning from the sunset as she waved around excitedly.

"Makonawa-san!!! Would you like to come in? Ota-san and Oka-san will be happy to see you again!!" He nodded coming into her home. The two mother and father duo smiled at their companion's widower. Tamari sat up straighter with a face meant for smiling and gray hair filling up his beard. Mizuho still had a gentleness about her that deemed her fragile though she was getting splotches of gray hair down her long raven tresses.

"Makonawa-san, how was your trip?"

And with that simple gesture, Sid knew he was as close as home as he could be.

For now.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

WOOT!!! I AM HALF-WAY THROUGH!!! Go ME!!! Okay, okay, I am so sorry about sounding very sore during my rant, but that was the truth of how I felt. I still love your reviews. It keeps this going!! Anyway, I love all my reviewers and I thank you a lot for putting up with my shit. THANK YOU!!!

Bai and Loves to all!!! Please Read and review!!!


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